NAPALM DEATH Frontman: 'God Is A Complete Fabrication'

Wormwood Chronicles webzine conducted an interview with NAPALM DEATH frontman Mark "Barney" Greenway earlier in the year. A couple of excerpts from the chat follow.

Wormwood Chronicles: So, tell me about "Smear Campaign". I know religion plays a big part with the theme on this album.

Barney: Yeah, generally speaking, it's about embracing the ideas of atheism and acknowledging the fact that as human beings religion really has no part to play in our lives. You can have faith...if people have personal faith, that's fine, I don't have a problem with that, but, I do have a problem with it when it's controlling people's lives. I mean, that can even come down to things like morality, which is a false concept. Morality was something invented by the various religious groups and sects as early as the medieval times. Morality could control people because it led them to believe that they couldn't behave in certain ways. This is a totally false concept because it assumes that this one person sitting over here on a pedestal has a negative view of this other person over there whose doing something that offends them...then naturally what the other person says has gotta be wrong. Well, really, when you think about it, that's bullshit, you know what I mean? So, it's rejecting that thing about morality as well. If you compare me...someone who's completely irreligious...to someone who is religious, is my life any different to theirs because they've adopted faith? No, it isn't. Actually my life is more full, because I can do things, and I don't restrict myself. I do things that to some people with faith they would deem as "taboo", and I don't have any taboos. I mean, yeah, of course, I'm not gonna go out and stab someone, because to me that's something I'm not gonna do, you know...it's wrong for me personally to do that, as a moral viewpoint. So it's basically talking about all this stuff and also on a wider scale obviously challenging people to set aside their religio, and come to an understanding when that doesn't play a part. For example, look at the problems in the Middle East. What I would say to those people without being able to obviously get amongst them is to stop all this stupid fighting over religion? If Israel stopped the annexation of Palestine, this would in turn prevent Palestinian groups from killing Israelis and then people could live side by side. For fuck's sake, just try it, you know what I mean? (chuckles)

Wormwood Chronicles: You know something, Barney...This is more of an observation on my part, rather than a question, but I've noticed that religion can also be tied in with other subjects you've mentioned in your lyrics over the years, like wars, greed, and corruption. It's really sad to see all these problems still escalate on a daily basis.

Barney: Yeah, of course. I mean, there's a situation over here in America with these churches and ministries and stuff. These people don't even pay tax and they amass personal fortunes through the actions of their churches. We're talking about people that go to their congregations that are living on fucking peanuts, man, you know what I mean? They're not able to provide health care for themselves, which is another issue, Yet you got these fucking ministers and that have these massive personal fortunes, and they're not contributing to the social welfare and the social well being of the country. Religious organizations that generate finance should be taxed, that's important. (chuckles)

Wormwood Chronicles: What kind of mindset were you in when you recorded the album? With all the negatives that can come out of religion, did this fuel more anger from you?

Barney: Well, I mean, you're always...not to be cliché, but you're always fucking pissed off about something because, obviously, that forms the basis of the action. The anger's one thing, but, channeling it into a direction that's not generic...that's difficult. When I write with NAPALM, I like to make observations, and write titles, and write lyrics that hopefully aren't generic. For example, "The Code Is Red...Long Live The Code", Would any title like that ever be used anywhere else by any other band? Probably not really...

Wormwood Chronicles: MEGADETH! ...

Barney: Yeah! I mean, for example, you could name an album "World In Pain". How generic is that? That's really generic! So what I try to do is make album titles, and song titles that aren't generic, and are creatively written, but, still are easy for people to understand. Because it's important for people to be able to translate the stuff I do. I'm not telling them that they should think in every way that I do, but I at least expect to give them an understanding, and then they can draw their own conclusions where they wish to, you know?

Wormwood Chronicles: We've been talking about all the negative things caused by religion...let's look at it from a different perspective. You mentioned faith before...I know people also use religion as a way of giving themselves hope and strength as well. My question is...Do you think there's anything good that comes out of religion?

Barney: Again, as I said at the start, I don't have a problem with personal faith, but, what I would say to those people is this — show me / tell me, how your life could be any different without faith? How would it be any different for someone like me to adopt faith right now, and suddenly see the light...which I won't at this point, because, I know enough about science and the natural order of things to know in myself that God is a complete fabrication. For that reason, I won't adopt faith, but, just assuming I did...someone tell me how my life constructively and physically is gonna be any fucking different to what it is now? It isn't, full stop. All it's gonna be is... OK, there's gonna be a slight feel good factor, but, I can create that without faith. Here's the whole point...Actually people of faith, even those just with personal faith...this is one thing they try to do sometimes, they try to suggest that people without faith are unhappy with themselves. Bullshit! Once you come to a period in your life where you have self realization...and I have, it took me awhile to come to that. I think everyone does when their growing up and getting older, you know? But, once you come to a period of self realization and realize that you can make yourself happy...and when I say that, I don't mean in a hedonistic way, I don't mean at the expense of others. I mean, living a life where I'm happy, I do things that make me happy, and that's it ...period, full stop. Once you get to that point, you don't need faith...you really don't need it at all.

Read the entire interview from Wormwood Chronicles.